Now a war between India and Pakistan...

[Simparadox]

quote:

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Originally posted by JJ:

oh and if this goes nuclear.....don't make me laugh russia will win, china has 8 icbm's russia has over 3,000 warheads.

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Sorry to break it to ya, but if there were a nuclear war between China and Russia nobody would win. An insane number of nuclear warheads isn't a big deal when you're talking about countries like Russia and China. 8 missiles (is that all China has? I'd swear they had more than that) would be enough to cause massive damage to many major cities or strategic locations and bring their economy down overnight. Even if Russia retaliated by firing 100 nuclear weapons (which they wouldn't - I still have difficulty buying into the whole doomsday massive nuclear exchange scenario, it seems impractical) the damage would already be done.

Also remember that Russia may have a lot of nuclear warheads, but they're being forced to remove many of them from missiles and get rid of others. Russia is not in a position to fight a serious war, especially a nuclear one. As a matter of fact, I doubt any country without some sort of massive defense shield would be able to.

Like I've said before, I don't think any kind of nuclear exchange is to be taken lightly and I really doubt that any country could survive a big attack in the long run. If even your six largest city's/centers of industry are destroyed your economy is going to be almost completely wasted. Sure, you may have enough nukes to strike back and turn the aggressor's nation into a pile of glowing, irradiated glass... but it's not going to matter if you can never recover.

EDIT: Man, this is getting waaaay off topic. What happened to India and Pakistan? And when did China decide to declare war on Russia?

[ 12-31-2001: Message edited by: Simparadox ]

[CommanderJohnson]

The whole nuclear doomsday scenario is highly possible. Remember the Cuban missile crisis? If one country is going down, they are going to try to take the other one down with them. Hey, if someone was going to murder me, i'd prefer we both die than just me. But that's not the point of this post.

The point is this: In a Russia/China war, Russia would win. In current warfare (short of Vietnam/Gurrlea warfare), whoever has

Air Superiority

BEATS

Armor/Artillary Superiority

BEATS

Infantry Superiority

Under this logic, China would win. But then you forget about Nuclear weapons.

50-100% immediate destruction of Both countries=No Winner

50-100% immediate destruction of ONE country=less destroyed wins

Yes, the fallout and explosions would probably screw up the world in the long term, but I doubt we'd ALL be dead from a Russia/China exchange. There would be some program done or developed to keep us alive. Humans are hard to wipe out. Anyway. Russia would win. China has a lot less nuclear weapons than Russia, and far less than enough to destroy most of Russia from them. China's nuclear program is far less developed than Russia's, last I checked, neither are making more weapons (China's working on longer ranged missiles, don't think on bigger or more warheads), so this is what would happen:

China invades. Russia counters. Russia starts to lose. Russia loses significantly, sees defeat. Russia completely nukes China. China nukes as much of Russia as they can in the time they have with the capabilities they have. Total destruction of China. Marginal destruction of Russia (from the impacts anyway). That's ALL assuming the US, NATO, or the UN doesn't get involved and stop the war from happening to begin with. They may be ineffective, but they aren't going to let two NUCLEAR CAPABLE countries go to war. They arent *THAT* stupid. Just think about it, when have two nuclear capable countries gone to war (except India/Pakistan, but they would kill their own troops when the missiles impact the ground, sorta defeats the purpose)

[Guest $iLk]

JJ, china's 8 ICBM's are capable of holding 15 to 20 warheads each. That's what an ICBM is, a big freaking nuclear shotgun. Russia's 3000 warheads could probably translate into 300 or 400 missiles, less if you add in strategic rockets, nuclear landmines, etc.

How many is not the point, my belief is that nuclear weapons are of no use other than as a deterrent, or a nice way of commiting suicide.

Truth be told, I don't know what exactly is going to happen, this whole issue is extremely complicated, and is not just an ideological debate. Neither I nor anyone else here, excellent points notwithstanding, are truly prepared to tackle this argument. It's not simple. There are multiple factors that have to be considered for every possible tactical move by either side.

Stormshadow has excellent points, and Captain Dread, the only thing I can disagree with you on is the number of missiles and planes on each side. China has the ability to actually USE theirs. We don't know for certain that Russia even has the ability to mobilize effectively, and their number of missiles is misleading. We don't even know how many of them will even fire if they push the button. Their logistical support is horrid, and ICBMs are about as techically easy to break as you can get. They cannot keep them fueled, and my bet is they can't fuel half of them.

Their number of troops and weapons are insignifigant compared to their ability to resupply. More factors come into play such as, why should they fight without pay? Why shouldn't the Communists rise up in Russia, etc. etc. etc. This debate cannot be won by either side, because it's too complicated.

It's easy to play a game of RISK or A&A and feel that the politics of the world are so easy to play, but in real life it's too complicated. None of us are prepared to argue every point, as there is nothing to argue over considering the variables of choices that would exist for both sides.

I motion that this debate end, considering none of us can win. I haven't tried to win at all, I've simply filled in the gaps of what people are missing out on, just as people could continue filling in gaps of what I miss. It's too complicated. Let's get a good ideological debate that can actually be argued FOR or AGAINST.

[Charles Lindsey]

I'll lock it. No hard feelings if you guys agree.

[CommanderJohnson]

Im pretty sure that it's highly illegal under verification measures to have more than one warhead per missile. Having more than one warhead is MIRVing missiles, which is against some treaty. Also, I bet most of Russia's would work.